


nothing to struggle against

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon Backstory, I just love the parallels between Dorian and Bull a lot, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, The Qun (Dragon Age), this is quite dark i won't lie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: Dorian’s nine, but he knows a lot of things. He knows how to crack the Fade around him like a whip, he knows the names of the last twenty-five Black Divines, he knows how to steal and lie, he knows the Qunari are a race of brutish rapist murderers, and he knows that one day he’ll be the Archon.*Ashkaari knows more than is good for him. That’s what the tamassrans say about him, speaking quietly when they think no one’s listening. He’s going to get himself hurt.(Dorian and the Bull's lives, parallel, separate, waiting to intersect)
Relationships: Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi & Iron Bull, Felix Alexius & Dorian Pavus, Felix Alexius/Dorian Pavus, Gereon Alexius & Dorian Pavus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	nothing to struggle against

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I wrote this a few months ago and forgot about it but BOY do I have a lot of feelings about Dorian and the Bull and this is about half of them. I did a lot of research trying to make this fit canon and I'm sure there's a lot that's still wrong because Dragon Age lore overwhelms my ADHD brain but I promise I tried.
> 
> It is...quite dark. So. Just a warning. Hope you enjoy!

i. Qarinus

Dorian’s nine, but he knows a lot of things. He knows how to crack the Fade around him like a whip, he knows the names of the last twenty-five Black Divines, he knows how to steal and lie, he knows the Qunari are a race of brutish rapist murderers, and he knows that one day he’ll be the Archon.

Dorian’s father says that when you know something--when you  _ know _ you’re right--you don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. This hasn’t been much of an issue, as none of the other boys in his Circle speak to him. Part of him wonders why, part of him doesn’t care. They’ll all have to speak to him one day. Have to listen to everything he says.

One of the older boys tells him he’s never going to be the Archon, once. It’s a casual, obvious insult. Dorian doesn’t reach for his staff, doesn’t move, and the boy catches fire.

The Circle throws Dorian out. His father screams at him for an hour about responsibility and respect and how you have to let some things go for appearances.  _ Appearance is  _ everything _ , Dorian. Everything.  _

So they send him to a new Circle, and it happens again, and again, and again. After the first few, he starts picking the fights, daring the kids into it. He knows he’s better than them. When you know something, you don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Appearance is everything. What he’d give to see himself coated in fire.

i. Par Vollen

Ashkaari knows more than is good for him. That’s what the tamassrans say about him, speaking quietly when they think no one’s listening.  _ He’s going to get himself hurt.  _

Yeah. He is. It’s inevitable. Unavoidable. They’re sending him to Seheron in a week-- _ eighteen years old, he’ll be good as dead by twenty _ \--and he doesn’t want to think about it. Tries to stop compulsively listening to the soldiers who return home shaken, angry, terrified. Doesn’t  _ want _ to know something, for once. But if they’re sending him, he’s going to take a lot of fucking vints down with him.

The only thing he can do to stop thinking about it is get himself into a state where he can’t listen. So he fucks his brains out, finds big nameless men who can hold him down and make it hurt. Gets so fucking drunk he finds himself sobbing in his tama’s arms about how scared he is, and she tells him, very conspiratorially, that he’s going to be fine.  _ They don’t name just anyone Ashkaari. _

When he wakes up the next morning, they tell him he’s not going. He’s almost disappointed. Almost wanted to prove he couldn’t be broken. They say his tamassran said he’d make a terrible soldier. It almost stings to hear.

They tell him he’s been assigned to the Ben-Hassrath, and he can’t help but feel a swell of pride through the hangover. His tama saved him. He’s gonna make it worth it.

ii. Minrathous

Dorian is spectacular and bored and desperate to be touched, spoken to,  _ acknowledged _ . His father sent him to Minrathous after years of more local Circles and then private tutoring, but none of it worked out. (He slept with several of the tutors, or at least got them close enough to it that they resigned in shame).

Now, in Minrathous, he’s like everyone else. Just another troublesome magister’s son, one told they were destined for greatness who’s taking it too far. Dorian’s the only one of them who’s  _ already _ great. He’s barely spoken to, mostly avoided, because he has a  _ reputation _ . Most everyone knows someone Dorian put in a sickbed with magic burns. 

They don’t tolerate Dorian well here. He’d go so far as to say they tolerate him quite poorly, if the regular beating is anything to go on. ‘Andrastrian discipline’. His father’s paying these bastards to do what he’s too fucking proud to. 

And  _ Maker _ he’s lonely. Can barely take it anymore. So he slips out, finds his way to the Elven Quarter. Might as well live a little, now that he’s in Minrathous, the center of everything, and no one would think to look for him here. If he’s going to make his father miserable just by being himself, he might as well do whatever the fuck he wants.

He ends up in a bar--a brothel, maybe, his elvish isn’t the best, and it’s not as if he’d be opposed to that--and the bartender is a young, beautiful elf, those delicate tattoos, full lips, and Dorian keeps ordering drinks just so he’ll keep talking to Dorian. 

He’s so drunk that he can’t feel the bruises between his shoulderblades anymore, can’t feel that burning anger he always carries in his chest with him, can’t feel anything, really, and it’s nice. It’s really, really nice.

He finally gets up, maybe looking for someone to fuck him all the way into oblivion, but a hand catches his shoulder. A man his father’s age--not a turnoff--but severe. Almost has an amused look in his eyes. 

“You’re Halward Pavus’s boy, aren’t you?” the man asks, and Dorian has some dull flash of recognition, but it quickly escapes him.

“Hearing my father’s name does  _ not _ entice me into bed, believe it or not,” Dorian says, and the man laughs. 

“What are you  _ doing  _ here, Dorian?” the man asks, and the recognition sticks this time. Some dull dinner party years ago, stolen wine and idle gossip--Gereon Alexius. That’s his name. A magister with a Soporati son whose name escapes Dorian, though they’d had a nice time together. 

“What does it look like?” Dorian asks, smirking, leaning back on the bar so he doesn’t fall. It’s all starting to catch up with him, and he’s feeling unwell to the point of losing most of his motor functions. 

“I should call the templars, Dorian, you shouldn’t be out here,” Alexius says, though he makes no move to do so. 

“I can be wherever the fuck I want, thank you,” Dorian says, tightly. “As I recall, you’re not my father. Unless you want to be?” He gives Alexius his best, practiced wicked smile, though it probably looks like a grimace. 

Alexius laughs again, shakes his head. “I like you.”

“Ah, glad we’re in agreement.”

“You can’t stay here, though,” Alexius says, putting a firm hand on Dorian’s shoulder and guiding him out the door. “I can take you back to your Circle--”

“I’m not  _ in _ a Circle anymore. I lit too many magister’s children on fire.”

“Don’t tell me your father sent you to the Argent.”

“Alright, I won’t,” Dorian says, sneaking a glance at Alexius, who genuinely looks a little horrorstruck that Dorian’s father would do that.

“Well...I still have to bring you back,” Alexius says, sighing heavily and helping Dorian into a carriage. “Though it brings me no pleasure to think of what they’ll do to you when you show up in this state.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t feel it.” Dorian slumps heavily against the inside of the carriage. “I haven’t learned  _ anything _ in  _ years _ , you know that? All these Circles and schools, they’re…” He shrugs. “It’s just my father keeping me out of his way.”

“So you’re a fire mage?” Alexius asks, settling down next to Dorian.

“If I have to be anything, I suppose, yes,” Dorian says. “It’s the element that comes most naturally to me.”

“What would you like to be?”

“What, you mean in life? Archon. What else would I want?”

“I meant what kind of  _ mage  _ would you like to be,” Alexius says, eyes glinting a little.

“A great one,” Dorian says.

“Stop avoiding the question.”

“I’m not. I want to do the impossible,” Dorian says. “I want to be a necromancer.”

“A good answer,” Alexius says. “Have you ever succeeded in raising a spirit?”

Dorian makes a noncommittal sound. “A few freshly-dead animals, and the effort nearly put me in a coma. I’ve been reading--I can whip-crack the Fade, so I should be able to just...tear it in places and wrench the spirits out, I just can’t quite make it work how I want. Yet.”

“Have you read much on the subject?”

“It's all too theoretical, it really doesn’t help with practical application,” Dorian says. “And I don’t want to use blood magic. I know that would relieve a lot of the physical strain, but.”

“I’m not bringing you back to the Argent,” Alexius says, firmly, and Dorian turns to look at him.

“No?”

“You’re wasted there.”

“I’m wasted here,” Dorian says, snorting at his own bad joke before he can stop himself.

“Would you like to be my apprentice? You’re  _ smart _ , Dorian, and ambitious, and if lighting magister’s boys on fire as frequently as you seem to have is anything to go on, you’re damn good at magic,” Alexius says. 

“I’ve been told I’m difficult.”

“Most great men are.”

“Then yes, I’d like to try,” Dorian says. “You won’t beat me?”

“I promise.”

“Well, good, then. Yes. Sure.”

ii. Par Vollen

They call him Hissrad now, and the name stings a little, like acid slow-dripping into his mind. Qunari’s names are their beings, and to be labelled  _ liar, deceiver, untrustworthy _ , even as a sign of respect, feels...odd. Not quite right.

But he’s good at what he does. Charm rolls off him in magnetic waves. People  _ trust _ him. He tells everyone who doesn’t know better that his name’s Ashkaari, still. No one trusts a Hissrad. Why would they? 

They all open up to him, though. The would-be Tal-Vashoth, the criminals, the Vint sympathizers, the Qunari who long for  _ better _ , as they tell him, their eyes shining.  _ We deserve More, Ashkaari, you must see that _ .

And he tells them he does, and relief settles. A kindred spirit. Someone who  _ understands _ . He’s glad he can give them a moment of peace, of clarity and connection, before he has to turn them in.

He’s often not there, but sometimes he is, and the hurt in their eyes as the other Ben-Hassrath drag them away starts to burn at his thick skin over time. The anger. The way they curse his name.  _ Hissrad _ , they swear at him. They don’t know it’s his name. His pride. His use. It’s the worst thing they can think to call him.

He offers to sever his horns early on. The priests tell him no, he’s more useful this way. More trustworthy. They say he looks Tal-Vashoth, and he tries to take it as a compliment. 

Eventually, word spreads among the loosely connected dissidents of the island: the one that calls himself Ashkaari is a spy, a Hissrad, not to be trusted. So they set him to re-education instead. 

He tries to be as gentle as he can with the poor fuckers. His brothers take pride and pleasure in the brutality of their beatings, the fear in their victims’ eyes. Hissrad prefers to see that moment of relief when they realize he’s not going near their eyes or balls. 

Mages, he’s not as kind to. They give him his first mage when he’s 25. A Vint, a young man. Pretty and soft-skinned. A magister’s son, no doubt, and he swears like a beast and bites at Hissrad every time he tries to ask a question.

There isn’t any room for lenience with mages. You fuck up with a mage, you’re beating demons off you with your own two hands,  _ and _ you have a dead mage. Hissrad chokes the man, burns his pretty, soft flesh, demands that he talk, and it works. Vints are weak. He babbles on. None of it’s useful.

Hissrad tells Viddasala what he’s learned, and she smirks.  _ It’s in your hands, Hissrad. You’re a big boy. _

So, better to be safe than sorry. He wipes the man clean, forces the qamek down his throat and watches him writhe with pain and fever, watches the memories leave his mind one by one. It’s the single most horrific thing Hissrad’s ever seen, and he feels he owes it to the man to watch closely the whole time, to  _ understand _ what he’s putting him through.

He takes no pleasure in pulling the blank, terrified mage’s tongue out. His soft hands scrabble desperately at Hissrad’s wrist, like he’s begging him, eyes bulging. It doesn’t help anything. 

Viddasala tells him he’s good at this. She says maybe she’ll send him to Seheron, but in the meantime, the Vint spy ring he brought down is being brought in for questioning, and he clearly knows how to handle mages professionally.

iii. Asariel

Dorian’s life is a perfect split of domesticity and danger. He has nights reading with Felix in front of a fire, drinking wine, going on walks, blowing Alexius under his desk as he theorizes--well, everyone knows what domesticity’s like.

The danger is in Minrathous. On the floors of the Circle, he meets it with an Orlesian kiss. He smirks devastatingly at the other magisters’ boys he used to set on fire as he sets to tearing them and their stupid and boring regressionary policies to shreds with his tongue. His tongue truly is a glorious instrument, especially when loosened by the shit he and Maeveris snort before debates. 

In family estates and seaside villas, he lets the danger fuck him from any angle, any position, any way it wants, as long as they both agree to the unspoken rule--this never happened, and it will never happen again. He lets the danger pour him strong drinks and slide pipes full of something that makes him feel like he’s burning up with ecstatic holy fire into his mouth until he can barely move. 

Between both of these lives, these perfect separate lives, he can be sure of one thing. He is  _ stunning _ . He is brilliant, pretty, and driven. He is near fucking perfect, and still, he manages to disappoint his father. He  _ will _ be Archon. It’s not an if, it’s a when. And then, finally,  _ finally _ , his father will stop scowling at him in the back of his mind.

Whenever he gets back from Minrathous, usually more than half-fucked-up and bruised, kohl smudged down his face, Felix always meets him in the entrance hall with that sad, disappointed look. 

Felix, despite having the least absolute control over Dorian, is always the person he’s least eager to disappoint, and it always guts him to his core. It’s an unfair power Felix wields, despite not having a connection to the Fade, and Dorian sometimes pretends to resent him for it.

But then Dorian settles easily back into domesticity again, and forgets the hurt in Felix’s eyes in favor of having his mind all-consumed by whatever Alexius is working on, and his own research as well. He’s beginning to be able to raise spirits properly, beginning to be able to  _ speak _ to them, but it’s becoming a vortex. More of his mind is left wholly at the Fade’s mercy each time. He’s looking into theory that could help him control that more. The month he spent in bed with his mind fragmented and possibly half-possessed did not agree with him, and he’s not eager to repeat it.

The closer he gets, the more wild his theory becomes, the more Alexius seems to want to fuck him. Dorian can’t tell if this is a bonus or not. He enjoys nothing more than being badly desired, but Alexius is the father he wished he’d had. He would love to have been born in Asariel, to have grown up with Felix, to have had less fucking  _ pressure _ on his shoulders.

But he lives in Alexius’s house, at Alexius’s expense, and he loves Alexius, and sex is easy. Meaningless. It is not mind-shattering or even exciting, but it’s a rhythm and a routine. Like the mornings spent talking politics with Felix or the sleepless nights, drunk in the library, reading by the light of his own magic. 

Knowing you have a bright future shines a light on everything else. Dorian’s future glows brilliant and blinding.

iii. Seheron

Hissrad has been on Seheron for five years. Each year, it gets worse. Each year, they ask him if he wants to leave. 

He does and he doesn’t. The endless fog is starting to blind him. He hasn’t seen the sea in years, and there’s always something pulling at his peripheral vision, a demon waiting to pounce. Whether it’s real or just asala-taar finally setting in, driving him mad, he doesn’t know. 

But he can’t leave. He’s  _ good _ at this. He makes short work of the Vints who try and take the port, and no Tal-Vashoth dares come up against him. It’s an endless nightmare he can’t wake up from, but it’s a nightmare he’s used to, and he’s not sure he could go back to Par Vollen now, back to the interrogation rooms where he has all the power. 

He doesn’t want all the power. He wants a fight. He wants to be able to die. Someday, he’s sure, one of these Vints is gonna burn him alive, and fuck, maybe he’ll thank them for it. He knows he  _ used _ to know why Seheron was important to the Qun, but he can’t really remember anymore. It doesn’t matter. He’s just a weapon.

He can’t go back to Par Vollen. It wouldn’t be safe. For them, not him. He’s more sharp-edged animal than civilized being now. Hissrad is a poor, ill-fitting name. He lies to no one. He looks like he could snap and kill a man any moment, and he could. He just needs a reason. 

His life is bleak and endless, but there’s rhythm and reason to it. A beat he has to blindly feel his way through. There is no end to the song. If he survives and they drag him off Seheron a shaking mess, mind consumed by asala-taar, they will make him a new man. If he dies, he dies. Either way, Hissrad won’t exist much longer.

He’s not sure he’ll mind that.

iv. Asariel

Alexius doesn’t grieve. Not properly. Though, Dorian supposes he shouldn’t judge what  _ proper _ grief is. All he knows is Alexius read the letter and his legs went from under him, and when Dorian read it too and finally managed to pick Alexius back up, he was past tears. 

He was manic and shaking, hands gripping Dorian, saying-- _ Felix is still coming home, it’s not too late _ .  _ I can fix it.  _

Dorian didn’t bother telling him that there’s no cure and it’s not as if either of them specializes in healing anyway. He tried to be comforting or smart or, or  _ something _ , because he can’t fathom losing Felix anymore than Alexius can. 

They can’t heal him, but maybe--maybe--

The words were out of his mouth before he could think them through. Before he could stop himself.  _ We could go back in time and fix it.  _ Alexius’s eyes were already lit up with hope and inspiration before Dorian added the half-hearted and obligatory  _ but that would destroy reality _ , as if Alexius didn’t already know that and as if it would make any kind of difference to him.

It’s been months, and Felix is home now, weak and ill and pale, veins running dark and corrupted under his skin, and Alexius is still all-consumed by that mania. Dorian is...helping. Half-heartedly, at times, but then he goes into see Felix, and it becomes wholehearted again. 

He hasn’t been to Minrathous in months. His future dims, but if his future doesn’t have Felix in it, he doesn’t want it. He drinks heavily, consistently. Time’s lost its meaning, which is sort of ironic, considering what he’s working on. 

It  _ is _ possible. The Fade bridges the past to the future. If you have a precise time, if you hold it clear in your mind, there is, theoretically, a way to punch a hole straight through from now to then and force yourself through it. 

It’s never been done, so there isn’t a way to know what would happen. Reality would likely tear at the seams. So Dorian, idiot of idiots, suggests something else. Freezing time around Felix. Preserving him. 

He’s drunk and it’s not a genuine idea, not really, it’s just something he’s saying to try and keep Alexius from shattering, which it does. Alexius calls him brilliant and kisses him and goes back to his books, his theory, his practice, and Dorian goes to Felix. 

He drains a flask before he knocks on the door. He’s met with a soft  _ come in, Dorian _ , like always, and he sort of crawls into bed next to Felix. The world spins around them. 

“What do  _ you _ want?” Dorian asks him, apropos of nothing, and Felix laughs, surprised.

“No one’s really ever asked me that,” he says. 

“You want to live, don’t you?” Dorian asks, and Felix shrugs against his sweaty sheets.

“Yes and no,” he says. “I want to be alive, but not like this. There...there are worse things than dying.”

“I suppose there are,” Dorian says, numbly brushing a hair out of Felix’s face. 

“I love you,” Felix blurts. “I mean--I mean I’m--”

“Felix…”

“I know you don’t feel the same, I just...it’s worth saying,” he says. “I don’t want to die unknown.”

“I love you too,” Dorian says, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. “But you deserve more.”

“Dorian...no one is  _ more _ than you.” 

Dorian’s sort of winded by that. He takes Felix’s hand and squeezes it, trying not to pay attention to the unnatural movement of Felix’s veins, his blood heavy and thick as it tries to push through. “We’re going to save you.”

“If you must,” Felix says.

iv. Seheron

There are too many Qunari bodies to bury. The poison took their dignity with it, and the smell is unbearable. They didn’t die well. Their eyes stare up at a sky they will never see again, a sky they haven’t seen in years, choked by fog. They were Hissrad’s men, and he had love in his heart for each and every one of them.

He can’t shake the image of them, piled up, horns tangled and locked, staring blankly at nothing. It’s gnawing at him. He feels himself slipping out of his own control. 

And then the children. The small corpses strewn through the streets, their horns only starting to grow in, child’s-play vitaar painted down their faces. That-- _ that _ is too much to take. The Tal-Vashoth, those godless, traitorous fuckers,  _ they _ did this. They killed--fucking  _ children _ , and that, that strips them of their right to be alive.

If no one else is going to remove their lives from them, Hissrad is happy to. He loses himself, somewhere in the fight, his axe, forearm, face, chest, all gore-coated. He loses a brother too, a friend he gladly would’ve died for, and then his mind breaks completely. The asala-taar takes him.

When he claws control of his body back from the demon that took it for a ride (it’s easier to call it a demon, it’s easier than it being  _ him _ ), every single Tal-Vashoth is dead, and he’s paralyzed with the weight of it. Some of their corpses have holes in their chest where his horn must have punched through bone and viscera. Many are dismembered or decapitated. Some aren’t even recognizable as bodies anymore.

He doesn’t even know where his axe is. He must’ve taken the last ones with his bare hands. 

He can’t move. He’s bleeding, he can feel it dripping down his skin. Maybe he’s dying. He wishes it would go faster. He doesn’t want to see this anymore. This war has always been meaningless. Revenge is fucking meaningless. Those children are still dead, his friends are still dead, and for fucking what? For nothing. For a shitty, foggy island they should’ve just let the Vints have.

This is madness, isn’t it, this feeling clawing up from his chest and forcing itself out of his mouth, he’s--he’s laughing, because he’s lost his mind. Ten years. Ten years for  _ nothing _ . It’s all for fucking nothing. 

The few men he had who didn’t die shitting blood find him paralyzed in his little ring of butchered Tal-Vashoth, shaking with laughter that went silent a long time ago, half-dead, half-lost. They’re too scared to approach him, but they call to him.  _ Hissrad. Hissrad, speak.  _

He remembers himself briefly. Briefly enough to look them in the eyes and say, like a stupid fucking child,  _ I want to go home, _ before the laughter seizes him again. 

He doesn’t have to tell them where to send him once he gets back to Par Vollen. It’s obvious enough. He’ll go willingly. He’ll swallow all the qamek they make him, no need to force his mouth open. He wants to be whole again.

v. Asariel

Felix is two years closer to death and Alexius is two years closer to destroying the world. He’s testing the magic Dorian fucking foolishly helped him create, and it’s already starting to tear at the Veil. The plants Alexius cast their suspension spell on remain perfect and never wilt, but there is a small, frantically sealed window to the Fade in the library that neither of them can close.

Alexius considers this all a success. Dorian considers it a fucking travesty of a nightmare, but he can’t say that without Alexius accusing him of not caring about Felix.  _ And besides, this is yours too _ , he always says,  _ and you should be fucking proud. _

It’s brilliant work, that much is true, it’s just that it’s brilliant in the way all the old blood mages were brilliant. It’s striking and lovely and perfectly executed, so long as you don’t give a fuck about the state of reality. 

Unfortunately, Dorian does happen to care, and Felix does too. He ventures into the library and  _ begs _ them to stop, and Dorian has to drink himself fucking blind to try and forget the shaking in his voice, the pain in his eyes. 

_ I’m not worth the world, father. Dorian, please fucking see reason. _

Dorian hasn’t seen reason in years. Maybe not ever. He’s learning that about himself. He’s also been drunk for at least a year, so that hasn’t helped. But Felix is right. Felix is brilliantly bright, and terrifyingly gentle, and staggeringly correct, always. He isn’t worth the world. No one is.

It’s just a matter of anyone being able to tell his father that. Dorian tries, finally, two bottles of wine into the day, watching Alexius attempt to freeze a kitten in their stasis spell. The kitten ages, regresses, fades back into nothingness. There is a space where a kitten used to be, and the window to the Fade stretches wider.

“We have to stop,” Dorian mutters. Fuck, call a spade a spade, he’s slurring. He’s gotten so undignified. 

“What?” Alexius asks, turning with sharp eyes.

“We have to let Felix die,” Dorian says, rubbing his numb face. “You’re going to drive yourself mad and I’m going to drink myself to fucking death trying to make this perfect and he will still be dead, and reality will be shattered to tiny pieces.”

Alexius slaps him hard. It almost stings. Dorian blinks, surprised. It’s the first time in his years at Asariel that anyone’s ever hit him. Now it  _ truly _ feels like home. “You give up if you want. Waste your brilliance. Drink yourself into the fucking ground. But you can’t do it here. Help me, or leave.”

“Gereon--” Dorian starts, an apology wavering on his lips, but Alexius cuts him off.

“Felix will  _ not _ die.”

“What if he wants to?” Dorian asks.

“It’s not up to him,” Alexius says, and there is something frighteningly close to true madness in his generally soft, friendly eyes. 

“Fuck you,” Dorian says, plainly. It’s not eloquent, and it’s not even necessarily the sentiment he’s going for, but it’s what comes out of his mouth, and it feels right. “I’m not going to help you torture your son.”

“Get out,” Alexius says, flicking a hand dismissively. “Be gone by morning.”

“Truly? That’s how you’re going to--”

“You are a fucking mess of a human, and telling you that you could become the Archon was the most delusional mistake your father ever made,” Alexius snaps, and Dorian blinks in surprise.

“Well…” he starts, as if there’s a comeback to that, but there isn’t, so he somehow makes himself stand up and leave. Between the alcohol and the shock of the confrontation, he can hardly walk, but he finds himself at Felix’s door all the same. He doesn’t knock this time, just lets himself in, and Felix lies the book he was reading flat on his stomach.

“Dorian,” he says, smiling in surprise. “What’s--”

Dorian falls into the bed, into Felix, bracing himself upright by putting his arm on Felix’s chest, and kisses him. It doesn’t feel like all the boys in Minrathous. They’re rough and vicious and purposeful. Felix is...gentle and loving and he takes his time. Dorian is worth savoring, to him, it seems.

“I’m leaving,” Dorian says, pulling away, leaving Felix stunned and blinking.

“ _ What _ ? But--” Felix starts, and Dorian shakes his head and sighs, looking away.

“Your father and I had a--fight. An irreconcilable difference,” Dorian says.

“About me.” It’s not a question. What else would it possibly be about?

“Yes,” Dorian says. “I’m sorry,  _ amatus _ .”

“Where will you go?  _ Home _ ?” Felix asks, incredulously.

“I don’t know,” Dorian says, shrugging helplessly and laughing a little, feeling the thought of his blank-slate of a future wind him. “But I will miss you  _ terribly _ .”

“I’ll never see you again,” Felix says. “Maker, I’ll never--”

“ _ No _ ,” Dorian says, grabbing the back of Felix’s neck. “You will. Somehow. I promise. Even if I have to tear your spirit out of the Fade with my bare hands.”

“I love you,” Felix says, and Dorian presses their foreheads together.

“ _ Vitae benefaria, amatus _ ,” he whispers, trying not to cry, and Felix scoffs, pulling away.

“ _ Fasta vass _ , Dorian, what a fucking joke, telling me to  _ live well _ ,” he says, actually smiling, somehow.

“I’m an optimist,” Dorian deadpans. 

He is sure more happens. His last moment with Felix has to have had a grand ending, he knows it, but whatever it was, he wakes up days later in a gutter miles from the Alexius estate, and in his heart he knows they’re gone, even as he runs back to apologize and beg for forgiveness.

v. Par Vollen

_ There is nothing to struggle against.  _

That’s what Viddasala whispers in Hissrad’s ear as his memories of Seheron start to blur into the fog.  _ The tide rises, the tide falls-- _

_ The sea is changeless _ , he finishes, like a child on his knees in temple. His mind whites out, comes back into focus. The corpses of his men, the corpses of the Tal-Vashoth, they run together in his mind, and his heart jumps so hard he nearly vomits when he realizes he can’t tell the memories apart. 

_ Suffering is a choice, Hissrad.  _

Suffering is a choice. Refuse it. There is nothing to mourn. Everything happened as it was meant to. The slaughter he performed was meant to be. There is nothing to struggle against. He did his job. 

The children’s bodies in the streets, though. How could that be  _ meant to be _ ? There is no fucking order to the world. No inherent nature. The Qun is a lie, it’s a fucking lie, and he--

_ I need more _ is what he says, gripping Viddasala’s wrist.  _ It’s not working. _

Something resembling concern flashes in her eyes. _ You’re of no use if we erase you entirely _ .

_ More.  _

So she pours more qumrak down his throat and he drinks it willingly, eagerly. He doesn’t want to be purposeless. Doesn’t want to be a dissident, doesn’t want to be a faithless fucking Tal-Vashoth, he wants to believe in his place in the universe and the inherent order of it all again.

His life blurs. She’s given him enough now for delirium to set in, and this time he welcomes the madness, because he knows he will be left more whole and clean for it. 

He doesn’t remember why he’s there. He doesn’t remember Hissrad. He remembers Ashkaari, though, that child who was always bothering his tama.  _ Too smart for his own good _ , came the whispers. Did that mean they knew he would outgrow the--

No, you can’t outgrow the Qun. There’s nothing to outgrow. It’s the order of things. The way of the world. He is on the path set out for him.  _ Doubt is the path one walks to reach faith _ . The priests say it, so it must be true. 

He’s fevered and nonsensical and his thoughts are so brief and fragmented he can’t follow them. His memories fracture, split into jagged, shining pieces. Some fall out of his mind forever, and the rest try hard to fit themselves back together, mostly coming back into place. 

_ There is nothing to struggle against _ .

He comes back to himself, finally. He is tired and dizzy and sweat-soaked and Viddasala is gone. He breathes deep and the air tastes sweet. This is his home, after all. He remembers Seheron, but dimly. Like a bad nightmare. That wasn’t  _ him _ , on that forsaken, foggy rock, that was some war-cornered animal.  _ The tide rises, the tide falls. _

His name is Hissrad. He is an instrument of the Qun.  _ The sea is changeless. _ He has a purpose to serve.

vi. Minrathous

There is nothing to live for anymore, so Dorian might as well put on a fucking show. He’s been away from the Circles for too long to hope to come back and become a magister anytime soon, and the Alexiuses are...well, not at Asariel, and that’s all Dorian’s ever been able to find out. His research doesn’t particularly interest him anymore.

So, why not make the most of life. All his old fucks from the Circle floors seem excited to see him once he returns to Minrathous, and certainly he them. He hasn’t had interesting sex in years, and he lets them do anything and everything they want to him. 

They tie him up and cast templar spells on him as some kind of power fantasy, and as his vision blurs and dulls and his connection to the Fade wavers, they fuck him so violently and roughly it feels real. Or they play Qunari soldier and bas saarebas and they gag him and blindfold him and call him a  _ fucking thing _ and pin him against the wall. Or, or, or. You get the idea. There are no fantasies of soft touching or domesticity. This is all forbidden, after all, why not make it as elicit as possible.

He hasn’t been sober a single moment since he pounded the doors of the Alexius estate and howled sobbed apologies to no one through the wood. There’s no reason to be. He wakes up somewhere new every morning, now, and at least it makes life  _ exciting _ . All of the altuses with his proclivities must whisper about him, because there’s always a new one to invite him to their estate and offer him wine and drugs and fuck him bloody. 

One afternoon he blinks out of a long blackout and finds himself on Maeveris’s couch. She sits across from him, leaning in and looking concerned, and he coughs in surprise.

“Sorry, what were we talking about?” Dorian asks, trying to give her a charming smile, as if he knows anything about what’s going on. Something about his mouth feels wrong, and he reflexively reaches up to find one of his back teeth missing. Ominous, truly.

“Dorian,” she says, and there is so much pity and worry in her eyes that it makes his guts churn.  _ Well _ , it would be unfair to blame all of that on her, wouldn’t it, considering he has no idea what or how much he’s consumed or even when the last time he was lucid was. 

“I’m alright,” he reassures her, immediately. Lies like that always float to his tongue so easily. His mother, jabbing him in the back until he stood up straight, pinching him until he sucked his stomach in.  _ It’s all appearance, Dorian, the wolves out there give a shit about nothing else _ .

“You’re burning your future,” she says, softly, and he scoffs, hot-cold angry veilfire igniting in the pit of his stomach at the words.

“Who are you, my fucking father?  _ Fasta vass,  _ Tilani, don’t you know me better?” Dorian spits. “I am exactly where I want to be.”

“Really, Dorian? Because you came to my door half-dead, beaten to a fucking pulp, too drunk to stand.” 

“It’s--it’s  _ fine _ , I’m  _ fine _ ,” Dorian says, rubbing his face with both hands, entire being desperately panging for a drink. “How’s Thorold doing? I miss the tiny fucker.”

“I do too,” Maeveris says, equal parts cold and sad.

“What, is he visiting home?”

“He’s dead, Dorian,” she says, and Dorian’s breath freezes in his lungs. “Like I told you last night and the night before.”

“I’m--” Dorian starts, but he can’t make himself finish it. He  _ is _ sorry. Finding love like Maeveris and Thorold had seems...completely fantastical. Impossible, even. He will never find  _ anyone _ to love him as he is, publicly, unashamed. 

“I don’t know if you should stay here anymore,” she says, swallowing hard and regaining her composure. “I think it might be bad for both of us.”

“I understand,” Dorian says, softly. “ _ Vitae benefaria _ , Magister.”

“Please take care of yourself, Dorian.”

“I always do.”

vi. The Orlesian border

The Iron Bull is a good fucking name. It’s descriptive (horns!), memorable, and it makes him sound like the blunt-force instrument he’s come to accept that he is. He likes to introduce himself. Goes over to groups of men drinking together and tells them, proudly, that he’s The Iron Bull, and can he get any of them a drink?

Sometimes he forgets he’s a large fuck-off Qunari and that humans are generally not huge fans of those, but, eh. Being outside of Qun territory is...sort of fun, really. A weight off his shoulders. And yeah, he has to write boring reports every once in a while, but mostly he gets to just live.

Live and drink and fuck his way through Orlais, and if that ain’t the fucking life, reward for what he went through on Seheron. Who says the Qun is thankless? 

He’s finding more and more though that reports and reading couldn’t really prepare him for what mainland Thedas society is actually like. It’s hateful and oppressive and you can almost taste the fear in the air. Mages deserve it, mostly, and the fucking Tal-Vashoth, but the elves? Fuck that.

He’s not  _ surprised _ when he runs into a group of Vint soldiers kicking the shit out of some young guy, but he  _ is _ drunk, and he goes through a mental logic checklist. If he’s getting beat to hell by Vints, it sure isn’t for being a mage, so he’s probably worth saving. Who knows? Maybe Bull can make a friend. A convert! (Joking, joking).

Bull plants himself squarely in the middle of the fight--fight is a generous word--and picks one of the soldiers up, throwing him across the bar into the wall. Another one yells in surprise and swings at Bull with a sword. Bull politely cleaves his arm off for the trouble, and pulls the badly-beaten man on the ground into a sitting position. The man shouts in surprise and points behind Bull, and Bull turns to get a face-full of sharp metal.

It  _ hurts _ , but only for a moment.  _ Suffering is a choice _ . He blindly grabs the arm of the guy who struck him and breaks it, cleanly, then throws the guy down and stabs through him into the ground. 

He can’t open his eye where he got hit, so he keeps it squeezed shut, blood trickling down his face, and reaches back to offer the victim a hand. He takes it and pulls himself to his feet, staggering hard into Bull’s side.

“Sorry,” he says, coughing blood onto the ground. 

“Ehh,” Bull says. “No reason. Wanna sit down and have a drink?”

“Uh--you’re bleeding, there,” the man says. “A lot.”

“It’ll be fine,” Bull says.

“I think--let me go get something to help you,” the man says, starting to push away from Bull. He’s met by the owner of the bar, who in no uncertain terms tells them that they need to get the fuck out.

So, they sit down in the grass by the road, and the man kneels and cleans out Bull’s wound with dirty riverwater and a bloodstained piece of his shirt. 

“I’m the Iron Bull,” Bull says, proudly, beaming at the man. He’s starting to realize he might be a little delirious from shock, but fuck it, he’s feeling good, even if he can’t see out of his wounded eye. He’s  _ pretty _ sure it’s open, but he could be wrong.

“Cremsius Aclassi,” the man says absently, wringing blood out of the wet cloth and going back for another pass. It stings like crazy. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Bull says. “Why were they so  _ mad _ ?”

“Uh…” Cremsius says, shrugging defensively. “Well, you saved my life, I guess I can tell you.” He sighs and takes his shirt off, revealing bound breasts, and Bull squints blankly with his good eye.

“Yeah, so?” Bull says. 

“You don’t--?”

“No, I don’t get why they were gonna beat you to death for having tits,” Bull says. 

“Well, good, then,” Cremsius says, shrugging and sliding his shirt back on. “My friends call me Krem.”

“Alright, Krem,” Bull says, smiling again. “Hey, you wanna join a mercenary crew?”

“Are you recruiting?” Krem asks, cocking his head.

“Nah,” Bull says. “But I’m looking to join one and it’s more fun with a friend.”

“You just met me,” Krem says, smiling, but looking a little incredulous. 

“I’m a good judge of character,” Bull says, tone light. It’s true, obviously, all that Ben-Hassrath training wasn’t for nothing. Krem seems dependable, committed, and strong. And fun, maybe. All good qualities. Besides, Bull’s maybe a little desperate for companionship. He hasn’t had a friend since--

_ the husks of his men staring up at the sky, horns stuck into the dirt, pointing down _ \--

He jolts, and he’s gripping the front of Krem’s shirt. Krem looks startled, but not rattled, which is interesting, considering how fucking huge Bull is. Most humans would be pissing themselves. Brave man. 

“You alright, chief?” Krem asks, tone light and jocular, and the friendly nickname makes Bull’s heart a little warm.

“Yeah,” Bull says. “All good. So, you in?”

“Sure,” Krem says, shrugging. “Got fuck-all else to do.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bull says. “I think we better get me an eyepatch, first, though. How bad’s it look?”

“Bad.”

“Like  _ really _ bad?”

“Like  _ incredibly _ bad,” Krem says, solemnly, nodding, and Bull sighs.

“Eh, fuckit, made it forty years without losing an appendage, I guess I got what was coming,” he says, and Krem laughs. 

“Your eye had a good run,” he says, then sobers a little. “I’m--I’m sorry you lost it for me. I owe you, I--”

“You don’t owe me shit,” Bull says. “That was all me.”

“Thank you,” Krem says, and Bull waves him off.

“Nah.”

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Krem repeats, and Bull sighs.

“Fine. You’re welcome.”

vii. Qarinus

They dragged Dorian home kicking and fucking  _ howling _ . He bit two of his father’s men and lit another briefly on fire before they decided it would be easier to tie him up and keep him too drugged to set the boat ablaze, which he considers trying in his few moments of lucidity.

(He’s glad they’re drugging him, he’s not sure what would happen if sobriety hit him full force. He has a few concerns about that.)

They drag him, half-conscious, off the boat and onto the Pavus estate, and Dorian laughs when he realizes where they are and doesn’t stop. They leave him in his room, staring up at the ceiling, shaking with silent hysterics.  _ Of course! Of course. _

He recovers from the fit, and the drugs, and then the shaking starts. An aching deep in his soul and guts, nausea and fire singing at his stomach and throat, sweating from the inside out. He cannot move from his bed, and no one comes in.

He probably deserves this. He doesn’t remember much of Minrathous but he’s sure he was spectacular as he burned himself to the ground, as he always is, was, has been. A blinding wreckage of a man. 

And he’s certainly suffering for his  _ foolish antics, _ as he’s sure his parents would put it. Never been so ill in his life. His fingers ache from twisting his sheets, the pounding in his head will not cease, and he’s vomited out the window more times than he can count. He aims for his mother’s roses every time, still foolishly placed under his rooms. He will never understand why she made that mistake.

Finally, finally, after--well, it feels like centuries but it probably isn’t nearly long enough for this hell to be half-over, his father comes in. Dorian is so grateful to see another person that he nearly cries. 

His father brings him water and sets it down next to the bed as he sits beside Dorian, brushing his hair back. It’s an oddly loving gesture, and Dorian arcs his back, trying to melt into it. 

“I’m sorry,” is the only thing he can think to say, through a scalding throat, cracked lips. The irrelevant thought comes, unbidden: he is the most unfuckable he’s ever been, he can  _ feel _ it.

“It’s alright, Dorian,” his father says, softly. “You’re going to be alright.”

“You’re not mad?”

“No.” His father squeezes his hand. “Of course not. It  _ hurts _ to see you out there destroying yourself, Dorian, you were always--so bright. I was happy to see you do well with Gereon. What happened to his family was a tragedy, and I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Dorian says, trying not to cry. “I--I should’ve stayed and helped, I’m a  _ fucking _ fool.”

“You’re in pain.”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Dorian breathes, squeezing his father’s hand back. “Always.”

“I can help,” his father says. “We can make it stop hurting.”

“Truly?” Dorian asks, voice small, mind scrabbling and falling off of any possible way he could do that.

“Truly,” his father says, smiling sadly at him. “You were destined for greatness, Dorian. That path still exists, we just have to set you on it again.”

“I’ll do anything,” Dorian says, and his father looks to be on the verge of tears, which sends confusion and nausea and shame and self-hatred swirling in his guts again. 

His father says nothing else, just presses a quick, solemn kiss to Dorian’s forehead and leaves again.

It’s days before Dorian’s well enough to get up and walk around his old home. He finds himself getting lost in the barely-remembered hallways. It’s been so long. He sees his father, occasionally, in the library or out in the garden, but never his mother, and he’s not upset about that, necessarily.

No one particularly speaks to him, and he’s unsure of his purpose. He reads, idly, old favorite histories, nothing exciting, and tries to incinerate the nagging, insufferable  _ itch _ under his skin to steal his father’s good Antivan wine and drink until the strange wrongness he can’t shake disappears.

A servant disappears one day. Dorian hears the others whispering about it. Speculating.  _ I heard he went to speak to Pavus and never came out _ . The words set Dorian’s unease pounding harder. He knows his father doesn’t have his own proclivities, so it has to be something substantially more troubling. Dorian’s shitty mind, always searching for reason and explanations, starts working itself overtime for the first time in years, struggling for  _ something _ . Anything.

The next day, another servant leads him into the bathhouse by the sea. Dorian follows, slowly, trying with each step to figure out--and then he sees the oils laid out, the pigments, the basin of blood, and his father standing there waiting for him, and his heart drops out from under him.

He’s read dozens, hundreds of histories, treatises on Tevinter’s brightest, best, and most depraved. He can recognize the setup to a blood ritual at a thousand paces.

“What is this?” he asks, frozen in the doorway, too scared to look his father in the eye.

“You said you’d do anything, Dorian.”

“I--what the fuck  _ is  _ this?” Dorian repeats, still stunned. “Pray fucking tell?”

“I want to  _ help _ you.”

“You--” Dorian shakes his head, trying to clear it of his racing, confused thoughts. “No. No, this isn’t  _ helping _ . This--”

“You’ve brought a lot of shame on our name, Dorian, and it’s not too late to fix that, but--”

“The  _ name _ ? What happened to your  _ honor _ , father, your fucking  _ principles _ ?” Dorian shouts, physically recoiling from it all. “What happened to ‘the last resort of good men’?”

“You think you haven’t pushed me to my last resort?” his father shouts back, and Dorian’s breath freezes in his lungs. “You--you are a fucking  _ disgrace _ . Your whole life I have  _ tried _ to give you  _ everything _ , and you threw it away. You couldn’t stay in a reputable Circle and marry a smart, beautiful woman,  _ fine _ . I wanted you to be happy, and you were finding your own path. But you’re not happy, and you are  _ lost _ . So I’m fixing it. I’m cleaning up for you, like always.”

“You’re my  _ father _ , that’s what you’re  _ supposed  _ to do!” Dorian shouts back. “You are a fucking  _ monster _ .”

“And  _ you’re  _ not my fucking son,” his father snaps, and the words shatter something in Dorian to pieces. He takes shallow, shaky breaths, trying to recover, but there’s nothing to say. There’s no snarky comeback to  _ you’ve fallen so far I don’t want you to be my son anymore _ .  _ Be magically lobotomized or you won’t be my son anymore _ .  _ Live a fucking lie and lick it up or leave _ .

For a split second, Dorian considers it. Considers stripping out of his clothes and stepping into the tiled basin and letting his father do the ritual. It would be nice to be happy. To not be struggling and suffering and wishing everything were different.

But if he doesn’t have himself, he doesn’t have anyone, and he’d like to still be a person he recognizes. So he says nothing, and he turns to leave, and he tries to keep breathing.

He takes one of the bottles of wine on his way out and drinks it in a matter of minutes, surfacing onto the cobbled streets of Qarinus. Once more into the fucking breach, except it’s really more of an abyss this time, and if he’s lucky, it’ll swallow him before too long.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All feedback is appreciated--I've loved writing these two for years now, if people like this maybe I'll post more.  
> Find me on tumblr @witnesstotheend.


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